James Van Der Beek Shares Emotional Post to Raise Miscarriage Awareness

James Van Der Beek and his wife, Kimberly, share five children, so it’s clear the two are pros when it come to parenting.

Over the years, they’ve experienced the ups and downs of trying to have children, including, as Van Der Beek shared in a new Instagram post, miscarriages.

“Wanted to say a thing or two about miscarriages… of which we’ve had three over the years (including right before this little beauty),” the actor began alongside a photo of himself and his wife with their youngest child.

“First off — we need a new word for it,” he continued. “‘Mis-carriage’, in an insidious way, suggests fault for the mother — as if she dropped something, or failed to ‘carry.’ From what I’ve learned, in all but the most obvious, extreme cases, it has nothing to do with anything the mother did or didn’t do. So let’s wipe all blame off the table before we even start.”

The actor went on to share the emotional toll a miscarriage can take on a couple, writing, “Second… it will tear you open like nothing else. It’s painful and it’s heartbreaking on levels deeper than you may have ever experienced. So don’t judge your grief, or try to rationalize your way around it. Let it flow in the waves in which it comes, and allow it it’s rightful space. And then… once you’re able… try to recognize the beauty in how you put yourself back together differently than you were before.”

Van Der Beek explained that miscarriage is a change, albeit one parents do not make for themselves. In the aftermath, he wrote, “Many couples become closer than ever before. Many parents realize a deeper desire for a child than ever before. And many, many, many couples go on to have happy, healthy, beautiful babies afterwards.”

The actor ended his post with two hashtags — #WeNeedANewName and #MoreCommonThanYouHearAbout.

He also addressed the situation on Twitter, musing over possible alternate names for the sad event after one fan noted that another medical term is “spontaneous abortion.”

“Not sure that’s any better… ‘spontaneous abortion’ sounds like you decided to terminate the pregnancy on a whim,” Van Der Beek wrote. “What we saw on our medical form was ‘fetal demise’. Not any gentler, but perhaps a tad more accurate?”

Photo Credit: Instagram / @vanderjames